CAIRO: Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi visited the Sinai peninsula yesterday to meet with and reassure Coptic families who fled from the town of Rafah after receiving death threats, his Facebook page said.
This “will not happen again,” Morsi told a group of local Bedouin tribal chiefs and other residents of the town of El-Arish, including Coptic Christian families, the official news agency Mena and participants said.
“Your security is our security,” he said. “What happened is an individual case which represents neither Egypt nor its children, Muslim or Christian. It’s crime for which the perpetrators must be held responsible,” Mena quoted Mursi as saying.
According to residents and officials in Rafah, on the border with Gaza, Christian families fled to El Arish about 30km away after having received death threats from Islamists. Leaflets were circulated in Rafah demanding that the Coptic community leave or be killed, residents said. A shop owned by a Coptic family was subsequently machine-gunned. Prime Minister Hisham Qandil denied the families had been “forced” to leave, but the National Council for Human Rights said the “threats” necessitated their departure.
Netanyahu may dissolve parliament
in mid-October
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will decide before parliament reconvenes on October 15 on whether to seek a snap election, a government official said yesterday.
Citing growing friction among Netanyahu’s allies, including disputes with Defence Minister Ehud Barak, Israeli media has said elections might be held in February, eight months ahead of schedule.
AFP
